Beyond the Deterrence Dilemma: A Game-Theoretic Deconstruction of NATO-Russia Nuclear Postures

Since the Cold War, the Ukrainian crisis has repeated itself. Although Trump’s attitude towards Russia has eased since he took office, this posture will not end the series of Ukrainian crises. In his recent dialogue with Zelensky, Trump called for the resumption of a key U.S.-Ukrainian mineral agreement, which is one of the multiple strategic intentions of the U.S. to aid Ukraine, while Russia’s strategic intention is to prevent NATO from continuing its eastward expansion. Both claim their demands are related to national security interests. The former consists of multiple short-term interests, while the latter depends on long-term strategic stability, which depends on several complex factors, and it is not easy to maintain foreign policy coherence in a country with a multi-party government such as the United States. The future resolution of the Ukrainian crisis will depend on the negotiation expectations between the United States and Russia. Based on complex deterrence theory and cognitive deterrence theory, this paper employs non-mathematical game theory to present the multiple rounds of dynamic mutual nuclear deterrence between NATO and Russia with a game tree and information transmission model, aiming at analysing the reasons for the change of NATO’s attitude towards the effectiveness of Russia’s nuclear deterrence in the context of the Ukrainian crisis.